Walden tried to look serious, but could not succeed.  Laughter twinkled all over his face, and he began to feel extremely young.

“Well,—­really, Miss Vancourt,—–­” he began.

“There, I know what you are going to say!” exclaimed Maryllia—­“You are going to tell me that it would never do for a clergyman to be seen munching pear-drops in his own parish. I understand!  But clergymen do ever so much. worse than that sometimes.  They do, really!  Two ounces of pear-drops for me, Mrs. Tapple, please!—­and one of brandy balls!”

Mrs. Tapple bustled out of her ‘Gove’nment’ office, and came to the grocery counter to dispense these dainties.

“They stick to the jar so,” said Maryllia, watching her thoughtfully; “They always did.  I remember, as a child, seeing a man put his finger in to detach them.  Don’t put your finger in, Mrs. Tapple!—­take a bit of wood—­an old skewer or something.  Oh, they’re coming out all right!  That’s it!” And she popped one of the pear-drops into her mouth.  “They are really very good—­better than French fondants—­so much more innocent and refreshing!” Here she took possession of the little paper-bags which Mrs. Tapple had filled with the sweets.  “Thank you, Mrs. Tapple!  If any answers to my telegrams come from Paris, please send them up to the Manor at once.  Good-morning!”

“Good-morning, Miss!” And Mrs. Tapple, curtseying, pulled the door of her double establishment wider open to let the young lady pass out, which she did, with a smile and nod, Walden following her.  Plato rose and paced majestically after his mistress, Nebbie trotting meekly at the rear, and so they all went forth from the postmistress’s garden into the road, where Walden, pausing, raised his hat in farewell.

“Oh, are you going?” queried Maryllia.  “Won’t you walk with me as far as your own rectory?”

“Certainly, if you wish it,”—­he answered with a slight touch of embarrassment; “I thought perhaps—–­”

“You thought perhaps,—­what?” laughed Maryllia, glancing up at him archly—­“That I was going to make you eat pear-drops against your will?  Not I!  I wouldn’t be so rude.  But I really thought I ought to buy something from Mrs. Tapple,—­she was so worried, poor old dear!- -till you came in.  Then she looked as happy as though she saw a vision of angels.  She’s a perfect picture, with her funny old shawl and spectacles and knobbly red fingers—­and do you know, all the time you were working the telegraph you were under the fragrant shadow of a big piece of bacon which was ’curing,’—­positively ‘curing’ over your head!  Couldn’t you smell it?”

Walden’s eyes twinkled.

“There was certainly a fine aroma in the air,” he said—­“But it seemed to me no more than the customary perfume common to Mrs. Tapple’s surroundings.  I daresay it was new to you!  A country clergyman is perhaps the only human being who has to inure himself to bacon odours as the prevailing sweetness of cottage interiors.”